7 STRESS AND WELL-BEING AT WORK

Chapter Scan

“Stress is a great asset in managing legitimate emergencies and achieving peak performance”. Stress
can be beneficial or harmful. While some harmful stress is inevitable, the techniques and approaches
available for dealing with that stress are increasing. Some individuals and some circumstances are more
at risk for high stress than are others.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

1. Define stress, distress, strain, and eustress.

2. Compare four different approaches to stress.
3. Explain the psychophysiology of the stress response.
4. Identify work and nonwork causes of stress.
5. Describe the benefits of eustress and the costs of distress.
6. Discuss four moderators of the stress-strain relationship.
7. Distinguish the primary, secondary, and tertiary stages of preventive stress management.
8. Discuss organizational and individual methods of preventive stress management.

LO1. WHAT IS STRESS, DISTRESS, STRAIN, AND EUSTRESS?

Stress is the unconscious preparation to fight or flee that a person experiences when faced with any
demand. Stress does not necessarily have to be destructive. A stressor is the person or the event that
triggers the stress response. Distress refers to the adverse psychological, physical, behavioral, and
organizational consequences that may arise as a result of stressful events.

LO2. Four Approaches to Stress

1. The Homeostatic/Medical Approach

Walter Cannon was the physiologist who discovered the stress response, and he initially named it "the
emergency response,” or "the militaristic response." A steady state balance, or equilibrium, is
homeostasis, which is upset when a person faces an external demand. The body has natural processes
to keep it in homeostasis.

2. The Cognitive Appraisal Approach

Richard Lazarus made contributions related to the psychology of stress. What is stressful for one person
may not be stressful for another. Stress is a result of the person-environment interaction. The person's
cognitive appraisal of a situation as stressful is a key part of the stress process.

3. The PersonEnvironment Fit Approach

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Robert Kahn determined that there is a person-environment fit when skills and abilities match role
expectations. Stress occurs when expectations are conflicting or confusing, or when a person's
resources are unable to meet the expectations.

4. The Psychoanalytic Approach

This approach is based on Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Harry Levinson believes that two elements
taken together cause stress. The ego-ideal is the embodiment of a person's perfect self. In contrast, the
self-image is how a person actually sees himself or herself. Stress results when there is a discrepancy
between the two.

LO3. The Stress Response

The stress response produces a predictable sequence of mind and body events that prepares the mind
and body for fight-or-flight. It can be quite functional in some situations.

LO4. Work and Nonwork causes of stress

I. SOURCES OF STRESS AT WORK

Sources of stress for people at work include task demands, role demands, interpersonal demands, and
physical demands.

A. Task Demands

Uncertainty and lack of control are two of the most stressful demands people face at work. Laid-off
employees have referred to the day after being laid off as the day they regained control of their lives.
Sometimes the dread of being selected in a layoff is worse than actually being laid off. Similarly, one
study found that heart attacks are more common when individuals have little control and heavy work
demands. Other task demands include career progress, work overload, and new technologies.

B. Role Demands

Stress related to role demands arises from role conflict, ethical violations, and role ambiguity. Role
conflict can result from conflicting demands between two different roles (interrole) or within a single
role (intrarole). Individuals who experience confusion regarding the expectations of others experience
role ambiguity.

C. Interpersonal Demands

Individuals typically experience stress in situations where they must work with abrasive personalities.
Sexual harassment and leadership style can also create stressful environments.

D. Physical Demands

The environment in which an individual works can be a very stressful situation based on physical
demands. Most people can list extreme conditions; yet, uncomfortably cool or warm environments can
provoke irritability among employees, leading to mistakes. Even working with computer equipment can
be physically demanding if it is not designed ergonomically.

II. Nonwork Demands

Most individuals have stressors that affect their energy and attention level on their job. The most
obvious ones are related to family demands, yet these are not the only ones that people experience. As
the society ages, more working individuals will have responsibility for taking care of their aging parents,
many of whom will be living with them.

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LO5. THE CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS

The benefits of stress are captured with the term eustress, which stands for healthy, normal stress.
Eustress is positive for organizations and individuals.

A. Performance and Health Benefits of Stress

The Yerkes-Dodson law tracks the benefits of stress that lead to improved performance up to an
optimum point, after which benefits decrease and stress eventually becomes detrimental.
McGrath mentions that performance falls as the difficulty of the task increases beyond a certain
point.

B. Individual Distress
Individual distress can be seen in psychological symptoms such as depression, burnout, and
psychosomatic disorders. The word burnout is probably overused, particularly in regard to
individuals who are simply malingering to rationalize failure or boredom. Stress is directly
related to medical symptoms, particularly heart disease and strokes, backaches, peptic ulcers,
and headaches. Behavioral problems are another form of distress that are manifested in
violence, substance abuse, and accidents.

C. Organizational Distress
Organizational distress can be evident in participation problems, performance decrements, and
compensation awards. Participation problems include absenteeism, tardiness, strikes and work
stoppages, and turnover. Performance decrements result from reductions in quality or quantity
of production, grievances, and unscheduled machine downtime and repair. Compensation
awards are the costs resulting from court awards for job distress.

LO6. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE STRESS-STRAIN RELATIONSHIP

Predictors of harmful stress for one individual may have beneficial effects for another. The Achilles heel
phenomenon suggests that people break down at their weakest point.

A. Gender Effects
Women and men have different life span expectations, with women typically living seven years
longer than do men. Furthermore, it appears that different stressors affect men and women,
and that important differences exist in the vulnerabilities of women and men to stress.

B. Type A Behavior Pattern

One of the ways to determine the likelihood of stress and coping ability is to examine the Type A
behavior pattern. Type A behavior pattern is a complex of personality and behavioral
characteristics, including competitiveness, time urgency, social status insecurity, aggression,
hostility, and a quest for achievements. Type A behavior pattern is also referred to as coronary-
prone behavior.

C. Personality Hardiness
Personality hardiness describes an individual who resists distress and is characterized by
challenge, commitment, and control. Hardy individuals appear to engage in transformational
coping. Transformational coping is actively changing an event into something less subjectively
stressful by viewing it in a broader life perspective. It is useful to point out to students that this
is not the same as exhibiting an "I don't care" attitude.

D. Self-Reliance
Self-reliance is a healthy, secure, interdependent pattern of behavior related to how people
form and maintain supportive attachments with others. One opposite extreme,
counterdependence, is an unhealthy, insecure pattern of behavior that leads to separation in
relationships with other people. Similarly, overdependent individuals also exhibit unhealthy
and insecure patterns of behavior that result from an obsession with achieving security through
relationships.

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LO7. PREVENTIVE STRESS MANAGEMENT

The growing awareness of the affects of stress on organizational performance has led to increased
concern with preventing stress. A preventive stress management approach involves individuals and
organizations taking joint responsibility for promoting health and preventing distress and strain. A
critical factor in this approach is the stage in which the stress is managed. The three levels of prevention
are the primary prevention stage, (designed to reduce or eliminate the stressor), the secondary
prevention stage (designed to modify the response to stress), or the tertiary prevention stage (designed
to heal symptoms of distress).

LO8. Organizational and individual methods of preventive stress management

A. Organizational Stress Prevention

1. Job Redesign
High job demands and restricted decision latitude are characteristics of high strain jobs. Job
redesign is a core characteristic of the job strain model for motivation. The goal is to enhance
worker control.

2. Goal Setting
Goal setting increases task motivation by reducing role conflict and ambiguity while focusing
attention on the task.

3. Role Negotiation
Role negotiation reduces stress by allowing individuals to modify their work
roles.

4. Social Support Systems

Studies have determined that the support of coworkers and supervisors may be one of the most
important factors in managing stress in the workplace.

B. Individual Prevention

1. Learned Optimism
Learned optimism begins with identifying pessimistic thoughts and then distracting oneself from
these thoughts or disputing them with evidence.
2. Time Management
There are numerous approaches to time management. One of these approaches involves
prioritizing demands based on relative importance and urgency.
3. Leisure Time Activities
Leisure is more than just not being on the job. Many people simply work at other things during
their leisure time. Effective use of leisure time centers on enjoyment.
4. Physical Exercise
Aerobic exercise and flexibility training are important to stress prevention.
5. Relaxation Training
The use of prayer and meditation can help prevent stress.
6. Diet
A healthy diet is important to overall health because it reduces vulnerability to distress.
7. Opening Up
Opening up at work implies that an individual trusts colleagues with self-disclosure. Sensitivity
training approaches from the 1960s were intended to increase self-disclosure.
8. Professional Help
Increasingly, organizations are encouraging their employees to seek professional help if it is
warranted by providing compensation benefits, release time for appointments, and employee
assistance programs.

C. Comprehensive Health Promotion

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 Comprehensive health promotion involves creating strong, health-conscious people in general,
rather than just at work, by building on individual prevention and lifestyle changes.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

 Stress is the unconscious preparation to fight or flee when faced with any demand. Distress is
the adverse consequence of stress.
 Four approaches to understanding stress are the homeostatic/medical approach, the cognitive
appraisal approach, the personenvironment fit approach, and the psychoanalytic approach.
 The stress response is a natural mindbody response characterized by four basic mindbody
changes.
 Employees face task, role, interpersonal, and physical demands at work, along with nonwork
(extraorganizational) demands. Globalization, international competition, and advanced
technologies create new stresses at work.
 Nonwork stressors, such as family problems and workhome conflicts, can affect an individual's
work life and home life.
 Stress has health benefits, including enhanced performance.
 Distress is costly to both individuals and organizations.
 Individual diversity requires attention to gender, Type A behavior, personality hardiness, and
self-reliance in determining the links between stress and strain.
 Preventive stress management aims to enhance health and reduce distress or strain. Primary
prevention focuses on the stressor, secondary prevention focuses on the response to the
stressor, and tertiary prevention focuses on symptoms of distress.

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